


The Time Lord

by rand_al_thor1894



Category: DCU, Marvel
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Light Angst, Mild Language, Original Character(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rand_al_thor1894/pseuds/rand_al_thor1894
Summary: Cyrus Pryce was an ordinary homeless kid, trying his best to secure a daily meal for himself in a world where superheroes are the norm. But an encounter with a mad man reveals that there is more than what meets the eye in Cyrus. Will he learn to use his mysterious abilities for good, or will he become evil and corrupt?





	1. Christmas Eve

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is also on Fanfiction.net. Same title, same username obviously.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was the day before Christmas. The snowy streets of Central City were bustling with people out to buy last-minute Christmas gifts. The Christmas spirit was clearly visible on their carefree faces. 

A black haired and pale skinned young man, no older than 17, named Cyrus Pryce walked through the crowded streets. His destination? The soup kitchen. 

For a homeless person like Cyrus, the soup kitchen was one of the few places where he could get a hot meal without stealing. Unfortunately, it was only active during the holiday season, so most of the time, Cyrus had to get his food by picking pockets. He had never been caught once, all thanks to his buddy Jaxon. 

He smiled slightly as his thoughts drifted to Jaxon. Jaxon had been his friend for almost five years now, ever since Cyrus had left the orphanage. 

The orphanage where Cyrus had lived hadn’t had enough resources to keep children after they turned 12. Same was the case with other orphanages. So Cyrus had become homeless after his twelfth birthday. He had run into Jaxon, who was 10 years older than him and also homeless, shortly after. Jaxon, an expert pickpocket himself, had taken Cyrus under his wing and taught him how to snatch someone’s purse without getting found out. Jaxon had since become his best and only friend. 

Cyrus arrived at the soup kitchen, located right behind a church. It was an hour or so past noon. There were a few dozen homeless people in line in front of the building. Cyrus scanned the faces in the line for his blond haired friend, and found him a few spaces behind the front. He waved at him. He waved back. 

Cyrus got in line. He stood in line for around ten minutes for so before he finally made it to the front. He got his can of soup, and made his way over to Jaxon who was waiting for him on a bench across the street. He was already enjoying his soup. Cyrus sat down next to him.

“Hey, Jax,” Cyrus said as he sat down next to him.

“Sup, kid,” Jaxon said. “So, what were you up to yesterday? I didn’t see you even once.”

He wasn’t worried, he was curious. They ran into each other on the streets almost daily.

“Oh, I was at the library,” Cyrus said as he swallowed some of the gloriously warm soup. It warmed up his entire body in the cold December air.

“The library?” Jaxon said. “What in the blazes were you doing there?”

“What do people do at a library, Jaxon?” Cyrus asked.

“Look up some furry porn on the computers?” he replied.

“Read, Jaxon. I was reading.”

“Okay, what were you reading? More importantly, why were you reading?”

“What do you mean, why I was reading?”

“I never pegged you for a reading type.” 

Cyrus sighed. He liked reading. He was honestly surprised at himself he had never mentioned it to Jaxon.

They finished their soup. Cyrus got up.

“You going to the library again?” Jaxon asked. 

“Yeah, maybe.” Cyrus replied.

“Alright, but we’ll meet up at the soup kitchen at six, okay kid?”

“Okay.”

[…]

Cyrus looked at the clock on the wall. It was half past five. He should get going. The soup kitchen was twenty minutes from the library. He put the book he was reading back in its shelf, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and left the library. The second he stepped out of the doors, he regretted it. It had started to snow again, and it was bitterly cold. He wanted to return to the warmth of the library, but knew that Jaxon would be pissed if he was late. So, pulling his scarf over his face, he descended down the steps of the library and onto the street.

Cyrus made his way through the streets. First he turned left, then right onto another road, and then left again into an alley. 

He walked through the alleyway, thoughts drifting here and there. 

A loud shriek caused him to stop in his tracks.

It had sounded very close. It had come from up ahead.

Cyrus ran forward, and turned right into another alley, from where the sound had come from.

What he saw terrified every fiber of his being. A man, with a mop of messy red hair and a lean figure, standing over the body of a woman, his back turned to Cyrus. The woman had a knife sticking out of her gut and was bleeding like crazy. Her clothes were darkened by the blood, and there was a pool of it on the ground next to her.

Much to Cyrus’s terror, the man removed the knife from the body and licked some of the blood off it. Cyrus let out a whimper.

The man turned and looked at him. There were twenty feet or so between him and Cyrus.

Fuck! He saw me, Cyrus thought in terror. The man grinned at him evilly, and those eyes of his… God, those maniacal eyes, even from that distance, terrified Cyrus.

The man advanced faster than Cyrus could have imagined. Cyrus tried to run but the man grabbed him by the back of his jacket and threw him into the wall with incredible strength.

Cyrus hit the wall, knocking the wind out of him. The man advanced and put his knife against the teenager’s throat.

“Sorry, kid,” he grunted, though he didn’t look very sorry. In fact, he looked delighted at having found another victim so soon. “You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

'No, no this can’t be it,' Cyrus thought desperately as the cold blade pressed against his neck. He was going to die, just like that. 'Please God, Allah, Krishna, any god, whichever one is real, please, please help, please…'

The psychopath man froze. Not froze, as in, stopped in his tracks. But as if time itself had stopped. Everything else also froze. The falling snowflakes were stationary in the air, the man’s steaming, tobacco scented breath completely stationary in front of him. 

Cyrus blinked. He was still terrified, but he wasn’t quite sure how to perceive what was happening. Everything was still, frozen in time as if. Cyrus put his hand up to the knife on his neck, and tried to push it away. It moved away from his neck, the man’s arm moved with it as well, but he himself remained stationary.

Cyrus was beyond confused. Was he… dead? No that didn’t make sense. He wasn’t wounded, anyway.

Cyrus stepped away from the frozen man. He carefully poked the man’s side. He stayed the way he was. Cyrus then took the man’s knife from his hand and threw it away, towards where the woman’s bleeding body was. The second it left his hand it froze in midair as well.

'So anything I touch… moves normally? What in the world is happening?' Cyrus thought, bewildered, but slightly relieved nonetheless.

Then Cyrus had an idea. He walked over to a trash can next to the wall. He picked up the lid, and smacked it as hard he could against the back of the madman’s head. It hit the man with a thud, and everything unfroze. The snow started falling again. The man grunted and stumbled forward, hitting the brick wall. 

The man passed out. Cyrus couldn’t believe it. He had somehow survived it. He looked up at the sky.

Whichever one of you it was, thank you, like seriously, thanks. Cyrus thought.

He looked down. And noticed the woman’s body. She was bleeding like crazy. 

“Oh, shit. What do I do, what do I do?” he started panicking.

He was about to go down the alley onto the street to get help, but a streak of yellow lightning and a red blur came from behind him and stopped in front of the body. It was the Flash. He looked at the bleeding woman, and then the unconscious attacker slumped against the wall.

“Wait here,” he said to the shocked Cyrus. He picked up the woman and disappeared in a gust of wind and lightning. 

Only five or six seconds later, he returned.

“You okay, kid?” he asked Cyrus. 

Cyrus nodded in response.

“Okay, good. Now tell me, what happened here?”

Cyrus explained what had happened. He left out the whole time-freezing part, because he doubted that would have made a whole lot of sense. Instead he said that the man had not noticed him coming from behind. 

Once he was finished, the Flash said, “You were lucky he didn’t notice you. He’s already killed 3 different people. We caught him thanks to you. That woman might also live because you intervened. You did good kid.” he placed his hand on Cyrus’s shoulder. “But next time, don’t risk yourself. There’s no point putting yourself in danger and getting killed. Next time, try and call for help.”

Cyrus nodded. By then the police had arrived, and after some questioning, and a medical checkup, they let him go.

Only after that did Cyrus realize that it was almost seven. He was supposed to have been by the soup kitchen an hour ago. He started running.

[…]

Fortunately, he had only been a few minutes away from the place. When he got there he found Jaxon standing close by, looking extremely pissed.

“What the hell, kid?” he said, supremely annoyed. “I’ve been here for an hour! Where were you?!”

“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said. “But listen…”

He explained what had happened. This time, he included the time-stopping detail. After he finished, Jaxon looked concerned.

“What do you think it means?” Cyrus asked Jaxon.

“I dunno, Cyrus. I’m just as confused as you,” he said. “C’mon, first let’s get some soup. Then we’ll go to the library and see if we can find anything.”

Cyrus suddenly realized how hungry he was, and gladly got his soup. Then, they would go to the library and hopefully, find something that explained what had happened earlier.


	2. The Test Results

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus and Jaxon stumble upon an article which changes the situation. The two then travel to STAR Labs to find answers to an important question.

Cyrus flipped over a page of the book he was reading. He and Jaxon had been at it for almost two hours and they had found nothing that could explain what had happened earlier that evening. 

Could Cyrus have imagined it? No, that didn’t make sense. Otherwise he wouldn’t have defeated the man with the knife. Heck, he’d probably be dead by now.

He suddenly had an idea. He got up and walked over to one of the library’s computer systems. He had heard about something called “Metagenes” a while back. He wasn’t sure what they were, but he had a feeling that it might have something to do with the incident. He opened the browser and typed in “Metagene”. 

The first result that popped up was an article from some random scientific website. He clicked on it.

The article read:

“Superheroes have been a crucial part of our world for almost 60 years now. The miraculous incident in 1962, when a glowing child was born in Japan, was the first known incident of superpowers. By 1980, almost every country had reported a case of superhuman beings, the highest numbers being in Japan and the USA. The superhuman society was emerging.

“But what was it that caused the sudden appearance of superpowers?

“In January 1989, a team of scientists working at STAR Labs made a revolutionary discovery; the Metagene. The Metagene is a unit of heredity found in roughly 6% of people in Europe, and 9% in the US. It determines whether or not an individual is able to develop a power in response to a traumatic incident. 

“By September of the same year, another gene similar to the Metagene had been discovered. This discovery was made by the renowned Professor Charles Xavier. He named his discovery the X-gene. It was far rarer than the Metagene, found in roughly 2% of humans in America. Further experiments in 1990 carried out by STAR Labs in collaboration with Prof. Xavier, showed that the Metagene and X-gene, though similar in nature, were two entirely different things. 

“In early 2009, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Wolverine agreed to be tested for traces of the Metagene. This test, carried out by STAR Labs, showed that not all super-powered individuals had the Metagene or the X-gene. Of the four tested, only one hero, the Flash, showed signs of the Metagene, and one more hero, Wolverine, showed signs of the X-gene.

“In 2016, scientists in Japan agreed to collaborate with LexCorp and STAR Labs, to see if the Japanese superpowers “Quirks” were linked to the Metagenes and X-Genes. Prof. Kohei Horikoshi, one of Japan’s top scientists in the field, said that…”

The rest of the article went on about the way that superheroes had been made part of society, the possibility of magic, how 80% of Japan had superpowers whereas the USA had only 11% (though most of the powers in Japan were too weak to be used for heroism), et cetera. 

Could Cyrus have the Metagene too? There weren’t any hard rules for the superpowers caused by the gene, not that Cyrus could find anyway. It certainly matched the description, Cyrus had been in a dangerous situation, and his powers had come out of nowhere. It seemed to line up. But Cyrus didn’t want to get his hopes up that he might be a superhero.

He looked around him, and found Jaxon browsing in an aisle some distance to his left.

“Jaxon!” he hissed at his blond friend. “Jaxon!”

He looked at him. Cyrus gestured him to come over.

He showed Jaxon the article. Jaxon read it quickly. 

“D’you think you could have it? One of the two genes?” he asked.

“I dunno,” said Cyrus. “It may be possible, considering that it happened in a dangerous situation. But I don’t wanna get my hopes up.”

“Is there, like, like any way we could find out for sure?” asked Jaxon.

“I think so, we could check.” 

He looked it up. The search results showed that STAR Labs and some other organizations offer free tests. STAR Labs would do fine. There was a branch in Central City.

“We could go there tomorrow,” said Jaxon. 

“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” said Cyrus. “It probably won’t be open until after the New Year.”

“Yeah, you’re right… but holy crap kid, you might be a friggin’ superhero!” Jaxon said in happy disbelief.

“Might,” Cyrus said. “Don’t get your hopes up. Or mine.”

“Yeah, but can you imagine if you are? With those badass time powers, you’d be awesome!”

“I…” Cyrus trailed off. In truth, he wanted superpowers. Anyone would. But if he had powers, he might get the chance to enlist in one of the several hero academies in America, such as the Xavier School, or the Young Justice Initiative. He would get dorms to live in, proper beds to sleep on, good food to eat. And while the prospect of that life certainly seemed tempting to him, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave Jaxon.

Jaxon had been his only friend for a long time. If it hadn’t been for Jaxon, then Cyrus probably would have been dead from hunger years ago. Jaxon had believed in him even when he had come out of nowhere with the crazy theory that he might have powers.

’Stop it,’ Cyrus told himself. ‘You don’t even know for sure that you have powers. Don’t get your hopes up, remember?’

“The library is now closed,” said a stern voice. The two of them turned around to see the librarian, a thin, strict-looking woman in her 40s or so. “Return the books to where you found them, and then kindly exit the library.” 

They did as they were told. Then, they picked up their backpacks, and went out into the cold of Central City. Jaxon went off somewhere else, saying he had to do one last thing, with promises to meet up in the park at morning. Cyrus went to the same park and spent the night there, on a bench, in his sleeping bag.

[…]

The following week or so went by as normally as possible for a homeless kid like Cyrus. Soup kitchen closed the day after Christmas, so it was back to picking pockets for the time being.

On the morning of January 4th, Cyrus closed in on his target; a well-dressed middle aged man. The man had gotten out of a very nice-looking black Chevrolet, and undoubtedly had a full pocket. Cyrus followed him, but since there were other pedestrians walking in the same direction, it didn’t look suspicious.

The man took a right turn onto another street. Cyrus followed suit. 

“Hey, Cyrus!” a voice said from behind.

He turned around to see Jaxon run up to him. He must have been following him as well.

“What?” Cyrus said as Jaxon stopped in front of him.

“C’mon, I just checked, STAR Labs is open,” he said.

Cyrus turned around to see where the man was. He had disappeared.

“Aw shoot,” Jaxon said. “Did I mess up your chance?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said. “But it’s okay. Let’s go.”

They walked to STAR Labs together. They walked for almost ten minutes before they arrived at the huge complex of STAR Labs. 

[…]

Cyrus walked out of the testing room half an hour later. After some paperwork, he had been taken in to the testing room. The test had been uncomfortable, to say the least. It had involved some blood samples, a very big needle, and a probe up in his nose. He had been tested for both the Metagene and the X-gene.

For some reason, Cyrus felt woozy as he sat down outside the testing room on a chair next to Jaxon. Jaxon had been reading a magazine, but when Cyrus sat down next to him, he put the magazine down.

“So?” he asked anxiously.

Cyrus shook his head. “Not now. They’ll tell us the results in a bit.”

They waited. After a few minutes, the scientist who had conducted the test came out. He had a clipboard in hand. He looked at Cyrus for a moment and said, “Your test results are in. According to those results, you do not have any traces of the X-gene.”

He paused for a moment. Cyrus waited for him to go on with bated breath.

“However,” the scientist said. “You showed traces of the Metagene.”

Cyrus couldn’t believe it. It was probably the woozy feeling distorting the words. He tugged at Jaxon.

“What did he just say?” he asked Jaxon weakly.

Jaxon beamed. “Dammit kid, he said you have powers!”

Cyrus was overjoyed. He couldn’t believe it. He let out a laugh of relief and happiness.

The doctor smiled slightly as he said. “Congratulations. But you still have some small things to do, mostly registration. Come with me, we’ll have to sort it out.” 

“Sure thing, doc.” Cyrus was still overjoyed. He had powers. He could become a superhero now!


End file.
